Tag Archives: carhartt

Tommy Boy’s promo Carhartt jackets are part of hip-hop fashion lore by now, but their role in preempting this whole contemporary brand orgy bears repeating. Those late 1991/early 1992 pieces probably weren’t the first streetwear collaboration (after all, pretty much all proto-streetwear seemed to engage in what would be considered a collab in current terms), but they set a standard with that three-way Shawn Stussy/Carhartt/Tommy Boy credible brand of the time teamup. Whether it was ever officially sanctioned by Carhartt or whether it’s technically a Stüssy project have never been made entirely clear (incidentally, seeing as GFS got the Phillies Blunt co-sign, wasn’t that a collaboration in itself?). What is known is that Tommy Boy marketing head Albee Ragusa was a Stüssy Tribe member and he headed up the Carhartt pieces as well as 1992’s merch line with Rock Embassy. After starting with 800 promo-only pieces, an Active Jacket variation of the coats went to retail a little later, accompanied by a set of baseball caps with Shawn’s distinctive hand style on them too (from memory, Danny Boy and DJ Lethal of House of Pain rocked the headwear) to coincide with a rise in hip-hop related fashion brands. In an era where music merch constantly crosses over with assistance from streetwear heads, this seems a lot more considered than another tinpot metal homage.

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Rizzoli releases The Carhartt WIP Archives in October. As someone who grew up preoccupied with duck fabric in that shade of brown and paused Yo! MTV Raps trying to work out what the brand with the ‘C’ on the path was and who the heck made those weird half zip shirts with the monkey on the pocket, it holds a very particular place in my heart. With those vivid memories of days when I believed Carhartt and Ben Davis were just very conservative-looking hip-hop brands still etched into my psyche it was an honour to get the opportunity to contribute a little something for this book. The company’s European history is very deep indeed.

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Way before spending twenty quid at the Japan Centre on 200-page publication dedicated to dungarees was the done thing, I was obsessed with workwear for different reasons (mainly this picture). My first forays into the brands I saw Apache, Mobb Deep and the other Havoc and Prodeje wearing came through Camden Market and — bound to a small town as I was — the Duke American Workwear’s mail order service. Ashley Heath’s workwear article in The Face around 1992 was a real eye-opener too. Seeing as we’re celebrating the 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web and I’ve done Shoe Trends to death already, the Duke’s site was one of the first things I ever saved as a favourite back in 1999 when I got the Internet at home. There was no e-commerce on it and the method of buying was roughly the same as it was in the Transworld and HHC ads years before — send a cheque. With a ridiculous amount of Ben Davis (for whom The Duke was UK distributor), an array of boxy Carhartt shades of duck, Big Bill, Walls, Pointer Brand and Dickies, the catalogues (complete with a ton of stickers) were an education in themsleves. Bill who ran The Duke (no relation to Bill “You know you done fucked up, right?”Duke to the best of my knowledge) based the business in Manchester but worked on oil rigs for a living (where workwear can be a life or death matter rather than something to profile and pose in. There was Peterman-eque prose on the site about the mail order service’s origins,

“The threads of this website were originally sown, in the South China Sea, twenty-two miles off the coast of Kowloon. Whilst I was sat with my size 12 steel-toe rigger boots, dangling over the side of The Julius Offshore Drilling Platform, which I was working on. Where could I get myself some hard-wearing, well made workwear similar to those worn by the American toolpushers who were also working onboard? The journey has at times been a rocky, twisting, badly eroded mountain trail and on other occasions a fast-moving, well-tarmac-ed interstate highway. Never being one to shirk from the necessary graft, the search was on, to track down some suitable American workwear brands.”

The Duke ended up primarily being a Ben Davis retailer by 2002 and I never saw any more updates after that, but his work deserves respect. That monkey on the chest pocket has been a big influence on me (check the logo above and shouts to Sofarok) and after all, workwear was the only gear you saw on MTV Raps that you could afford to acquire without breaking too much of a sweat. Happy birthday to the WWW and salutes to the Duke.

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Hold up — is it okay to post workwear related stuff again? Are Primark ditching 60/40 jacket knockoffs for Damir Doma imitations? Looking at glimpses of the impending Supreme drop,it looks like arty all-over prints are back again – after the L’Origine du Mond reproduction put a pussy on the chest of kids with expendable income (and the owner of the aforementioned pussy has apparently been located to give one lucky person the ultimate resell action), is that flower print a Power, Corruption & Lies Peter Saville homage, or is it a tribute to the source material by Henri Fantin-Latour? I get confused by all the tributes myself, but the prospect of gear that uses that imagery is cool with me. Just wait until the Supreme-alikes unleash the Chelsea Flower Show on fleece in response. I’m in the middle of two copywriting assignments this weekend, despite pledging to put writing on the backburner, so I can only offer you a by-numbers blog post. I still read long form copy from before the #hashtag era for inspiration whenever I’m working on a project and I’m a huge fan of Carhartt’s 1980s ads. Much has been printed and reproduced regarding Hamilton’s company and their no-nonsense Depression-era ads, with their emphasis on value and longevity, but I like looking at their 1985-1993 campaigns for that smart move not to address a growing trend-led audience. I believe some of these were published in those brand books that contained an excellent set of brand histories, but I’m feeling lazy and duck canvas is still one of the beautifullest things in the world.

Rushing blogging today for a number of reasons. But that doesn’t mean I can’t assail you with a bricolage of barely related bollocks. No sir. It just means it’s even less connected culturally than ever before. For some reason, putting some pictures from the bin bags of brand-related ephemera (which I believe are out there on the internet somewhere already) of Tinker Hatfield and Michael Jordan in deep conversation on the subject of Jordan V and VI caused some commotion, so here’s the images again (the AJV one is actually from ‘Sneakerheads’ and has been posted before, but sometimes you need to repeat yourself to get noticed). Garments, hair, variations on popular colourways and sensible shoes. It’s all here. There’s more somewhere in the papery stacks, but drop-feeding rather than turning this into some Jordan fansite is probably the best route. For the time being, until I start hunting that SEO scrilla by reposting Modern Notoriety’s images with some hyperbolic copy. One day I might start doing that here.

How the fuck did I miss out Carhartt and Chysler’s small collection of ‘Imported From Detroit’ jackets, tees and trousers? While the union of motor vehicle and apparel isn’t necessarily destined for greatness, these pieces are the best car-related clothing since Alan Partridge’s Castrol GTX jacket. In fact, unlike some more high-profile (and more expensive) Carhartt projects, they’re made in the USA as part of a new drive (pun unintended) to promote the brand’s homegrown manufacture, as detailed by A Continuous Lean last October. The blacked out ‘Made in the USA’ patches limited runs (each individually numbered) and Detroit map on the custom quilted lining are all nice touches. In fact, from a high-end partner and launched at one of any number of Euro fashion trade shows right now, the iPhone blog paps would be descending on these pieces. But they’re not letting them into their urban ninja or street goth world right now. Not yet, anyway. These are more legit because the motor trade is one that actually necessitates workwear, whereas looking serious by a wall for a lookbook doesn’t. Admittedly, while you’ll pay extra for APC and Adam Kimmel’s vision, and they probably won’t be made in the USA, and while I love the IFD Active Jacket, it’s quite clear from the imagery that it fits mad boxy, unlike the slimmer fit of the higher-end and Euro-centric pieces.

It’s good to read informed opinions that hint at some substantial levels of research too, and I’ve been preoccupied with The Weejun all over again lately. The musings of a Brit who has been infatuated with Ivy since 1979 (a little while before either ‘Take Ivy’ reprint, anyway) is a masterful blog and his Brooks Brothers circa 1980 piece reminded me of a conversation with a friend about rich guy trousers, wherein we defined wealth by the mindset that innately associates lurid corduroy with casual, rather than a beat up pair of jeans. Brooks Brothers mastered the rich guy trouser and The Weejun talks about the pair that caught my eye when those old catalogue PDFs popped up a few years back on the Ask Andy Trad forum via Yamauchi Yuki (who I believe is a Japanese Aloha guitarist), with a wealth of wild trousers in the mix. The Christmas “fun” cords are basically half of a click suit for the very wealthy. Anybody who can pull them off is an original don dada of the college town scene — I’ve seen similar attempts at lurid mismatches from Polo, but Brooks Brothers’ are significantly wilder.

Bookending this entry with shoe-centric talk, given the boom in all things Nike Free, here’s a shot from a Nike promo booklet on innovation of the original Tinker Hatfield shoe prototype he called the Nike Free back in 1994 — a decade before his brother Tobie Hatfield helped bring us a very different Nike Free in 2004. As the company copy points out, this was actually destined to get a Rift-style split-toe (this was just before the Rift too). I see a little bit of HTM2 Run Boot in here, plus some traditional weave in there that may or may not have informed later developments too. That’s a lot of influence in one unreleased space age sandal and pure urban ninja fodder.

After the blitz of ACG related attention, I feel an urge to pander to popularity. But then I remembered that this blog has a duty to alienate. There’s a lot that’s wearying out there – there’s the hipster douchebags who feel that they’re above the other hipsters by self-conscientiously pointing and laughing at them via WordPress, Tumblr and twitter. They’re oblivious to the fact that they’re far, far worse. There’s nothing worse than a hipster doofus who thinks he’s evolved beyond the common garden variety – like the ones chuckling at Dalston mock reality shows and songs about being a dickhead. It’s like Carly Simon’s ‘You’re So Vain’ but with far more vacuous wankers than Warren Beatty or whoever pissed Carly off.

We should do a little dance every time an independent store opens during a recession, but there’s too many stores out there with a homogenized buying policy of chunky-soled brogue boots, US-made jackets, Pendleton, the smell of incense and some olde world wooden fixtures. It’s not that I don’t want you to succeed and it’s not a criticism of the items you’re stocking, but when the “McDonald’s 1955 retro burger effect” makes identikit heritage crumble like a house of cards, I fear for your Ralph Lauren-lite retail space. What are you going to do? Start selling futuristic suits made of space age fabrics overnight? Unlikely. Top Man can ditch the Nigel Cabourn-lite overnight and be onto the next one, but smaller brands eating off Cabourn’s considerable swagger (a knowledge attained by more than 24 months of ‘Free & Easy’) are going to catch a black eye. Then that Americana fetish will scuttle back to Japan where it never gets corny.

But (almost) worse than all these characters is the heritage trickle down. When I see takedowns of looks that London bellends bred in my hometown, I know they’re done. Scoop necked tees on pallid chests, white Vans Era copies, Kasabian playing through Beats by Dre headphones and worst of all — the cuff chino. Once, the pinroll was the preserve of kids who’d check your pockets with a gruff “What have you got for me?” query, accompanied by Argyle socks. Then it became the totem of the significantly less threatening sneaker dude — same shoes as the rudeboy, but significantly weaker. That spread via track bike to a certain breed of buffoon who’d cuff their chinos for anything, showing their wacky socks off to feign personality and revealing brogues and plimsolls. It was the devolution of cool. Not everybody is Nick Wooster — even if they buy the same camo blazer. It’s worth mentioning that the scally and provincial town phenomenon of young men (and occasionally women too) wearing their football socks over tracky bottoms is amazing and exempt from this criticism, one of those authentic looks that seems to spring up organically without media interference (was it born of post-kick around necessity?) though I wonder if it had any bearing on the cuffed look’s national sprawl.

Thanks to “stylists”, a new breed of reality show runner up boy bands and some high street retailers and growing online entities decided to sell the chinos ready cuffed. It’s curious to see a bunch of “oi oi saveloy” beer boys dressed in drop crotch, ankle exposing trousers, because it’s a convergence of almost avant-garde and lumpen twattery that convinces me that the ground is ready to swallow us up into a fiery pit any minute soon. The wearing of cuff chinos was almost certainly mentioned somewhere in the Book of Revelations.

Flicking through Michael Allen Harris’s awesome ‘Jeans of the Old West: A History‘, (published last year and necessary if you’ve got the faintest interest in denim’s many, many incarnations during gold and silver mining times), when Michael’s not puncturing frequently told tales regarding the development of the jean, he’s showcasing some early duck and denim designs. A pair of Hettrick Manufacturing Company American Field Coats duck pants from the end of the 19th century have a leg cuff on the rear ankle and escalating cut on the thigh that brought to mind 2011’s breed of twat-pant. That bulbous cut is almost Chipe-esque. Perhaps that pant’s original owner was the forefather of today’s fast expanding breed of chino bellend.

Salutes to Carhartt for doing this heritage thing right though. The six brand books form an interesting brand history (I love the slogan, “Honorably Made for Honorable Men“) for hadn’t seen gathered before and the homie Sofarok put me onto this Carhartt ad that’s currently on US TV. I like the cool-guy free message a lot. There’s a lot of scope for shameless myth making and blue collar sentimentality in that realm that should outlast any fads.

Making light of Channel 4’s ‘Street Summer’ season is like shooting beatboxers in a barrel, so it would be too obvious to lampoon their Superdry-friendly mix of parkour, BMX, making music with your mouth and dripping stencils. It is what it is, “urban” culture zip-filed up into some kind of rapping, dancing expression of da ‘yoof. If you expected a three-hour Money Boss Players documentary, a JA character study or a celebration of Hypnotize Minds, then you were being wildly optimistic. Still, it’s curious that T4’s ‘Inside SBTV: From Bedroom to Boardroom’ and some of BBC Two’s ‘No Hats, No Trainers’ felt like superior attempts at the same subject matter.

But their two-hour ‘How Hip Hop Changed the World’ was a wasted opportunity. It’s not a case of naivety and nerdery, angrily fist waving at a lack of Beatnuts — it was just a weak offering that seemed to be cobbled together by the same minds behind ‘Street Summer’s infamous commercial. Idris Elba waved his arms around and swaggered like Danny Dyer on a roof somewhere, Nas was deadpan and dull, plenty of UK acts got excited, people were filmed in the act of racking their memory banks and historically it flitted around like some Burroughs-esqe cut-and-paste hallucination. People spinning on their head! Mike Skinner! Ronald Reagan looking impressed! Diddy being wealthy! The Sugarhill Gang! Weetabix men! A clip from a Wu-Tang Video!

‘How Hip Hop Changed the World’ was simply another ‘I Love…’ nostalgia show that felt curiously dated, like the sort of thing you might catch at 3:15am on a freeview music channel in a drunken haze and it displayed a curious regression — 1999’s ‘The Hip-Hop Years’ attempted a history and failed with a simplistic delivery, but it was more watchable than friday night’s offering. As if to highlight the inferior nature of Channel 4’s latest failure, adverts looked culled from YouTube and plenty of footage from 1987’s BBC Open Space documentary ‘Bad Meaning Good’ and 1984’s ‘Beat This! A Hip-Hop History’ was used. The latter efforts were excellent, and while hip-hop culture operated in a smaller space for documentation, how on earth is hip-hop still being treated as some kind of fly-by-night gimmick in terms of documentation?

The truth of the matter is that hip-hop needs something akin to the ten-part Ken Burns treatment. An adaptation of Dan Charnas’s ‘The Big Payback’ would be fascinating. Some would say that it’s still too immature and others claim that it regressed…that it doesn’t respect itself enough to warrant a serious documentation, but that would be erroneous. Contemporary “urban” culture being treated as some kind of bad musical where folks dance out their grievances in dayglo clothing is part of the problem — depictions of the inner-cities are wildly at odds with the realities, and a multi billion-dollar business that seems to have permeated everything is still being summarised in a 1-minute moving tableaux of twattery.

Forget $299 books retreading the flawed steps of ‘Hip Hop Immortals’ or the equally messy ‘Hip Hop Immortals: We Got Your Kids’ and ‘Rhyme & Reason’ documentaries. The culture got more complicated and the depictions got dumber. How on earth does an expert in Tudor history end up on Newsnight in lieu of any of the young journalists who could have offered some valuable insight without resorting to a Mr. Starkey-friendly “white voice”? How did Channel 4 go from screening Henry Chalfont’s masterful ‘Style Wars’ in 1984 to 120 minutes of unstructured stating-the-bloody-obvious 27 years later? This was a valuable opportunity to celebrate something remarkable squandered.

While we’re ranting, what’s up with the 5D culture of factory-tour videos? If your brand needs to show me the manufacturing process in order for me to appreciate it, then I want nothing to do with it. The provenance of a garment or item seems to be superseding whether it’s actually very good. Making something in the UK and describing it down to the strand of cotton doesn’t necessarily make it better than anything else. Production line shots, earnest images of men in aprons, occasional blur and a SBTRKT or Beirut soundtrack are becoming a formula — if your documentation of handcrafts feels formulaic and clinical, then you’ve missed your own point.

I had a wander round Jacket Required in London. I can’t remember much, but I enjoyed myself. My favourite item was a velvet jacket from Sk8thing and Nigo’s Human Made line depicting a Toddy Cat (aka. the Asian Palm Civet — the creature that defecates the berries that make Kopi Lawak coffee) enjoying a brew. It’s a very expensive item, but like the varsity jacket with a hotdog across the back, Nigo seems to have restored his aptitude for awesome again, building on the URSUS styles to go completely crazy with these surreal, self-indulgent vintage style. I like the Carhartt camo pieces as part of the archive line that are dropping soon too — definite crowd pleasers, and the contemporary buttons on the recent heritage-style stuff have been ridded in favour or something a little more olde world.

Rest in peace KASE 2 TFP. I mourned his passing a little too early on Twitter this week, but the one-armed, letter camouflaging, King of Styyyyyyyyyyyle has passed away. I know Goldie painted with Kaze, but did I dream up the footage of a starstruck Goldie meeting KASE 2 back in the 1980s? Was it from the ‘Zulu Dawn’ footage pulled down from YouTube? My love for the ‘Beastmaster’ scene in ‘Style Wars’ has been expounded upon here before, but this legend deserves a celebration.

Linking to that Canon 5D remark, you’re likely to see an influx of tattoo-centric videos soon, but ignoring a lot I’m really enjoying VBS’s Tattoo Age. In a fantastic coincidence (and one that will no doubt cheer up the homie Nick Schonberger, just as VBS started teasing the Grime episodes, Grime Daily started showing their ‘Tattoo Watch’ episodes. In the latter, there’s no talk of technique, just lots of madcap meanings or none-at-all, but the UFO chest piece is awesome.

It’s officially proper jacket weather. With their London flagship just opened, Mr Sofarok recently reminded me of the power of Japan’s Descente ski wear, and it seemed timely to focus on one of the most...